Day: January 16, 2010

We should all have the generosity of Sandra Bullock, who announced earlier today that she’s donated a million bucks to Doctors Without Borders, which is currently trying to do what it can to alleviate the suffering in Haiti.

“I wanted to ensure that my donation would be used immediately to meet the needs of the Haitian people affected by this catastrophic event,” Bullock said in a statement.

How do I begin to broach my next thought without sounding all wrong? Naah, forget it. Blame it on Oscar season myopia.

“Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one,” says Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel to New York‘s “Vulture” guys. “I think I’ve seen about 145 of them. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.”

I have to jump on the L line so I’m recommending the assessment about last night’s Broadcast Film Critics Awards by In Contention‘s Guy Lodge. The BFCA has a history of reflecting mainstream Academy tastes and prejudices. To my surprise Up In The Air seems to be falling more and more to the wayside. It really is down to Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker on the Best Picture front now. The gathering suspicion is that Kathryn Bigelow‘s film might actually win.

Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock tied last night for the BFCA’s Best Actress award.

AJ Schnack invited me to last night’s 2010 Cinema Eye Honors at the Times Center on West 41st Street, and not only that — I went! Louie Psihoyos‘ The Cove won the best feature doc award. Women who’ve refused to see The Cove so far should not let this get in the way. If they don’t want to support a film that’s trying to wake people up about some ghastly goings-on in Taiji, Japan, that’s their right. Box-office democracy!

(l.) Cove producer Paula DuPre Pressman accepting the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking award; (r.) Robinson, Schnack.

Cinema Eye director Schnack and co-host Esther Robinson (really great smile, founder/honcho of ArtHome) were the hosts.

Schnack charmed the audience (more or less) with a game of MadLibs that went on for eight or nine minutes. Schnack later tried a visual joke about fried chicken that totally bombed. I need to add that I respect Schnack’s ballsiness in trying to get a laugh out of feigned indifference to the torturing of Purdue chickens. This was the kind of error that only a confident and slightly mad host would have even attempted. Good on that.

The Cinema Eye show was projected to last 90 minutes. It went on for two hours and 20 minutes.

The technical name for the big whoa-ho award that The Cove won is “Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking.” Louie didn’t show, and neither did Fisher Stevens. The award was accepted (I think) by Paula DuPre Pressman.

The Cove also won the Outstanding Achievement in Production award. And Cove dp Brooke Aitken won for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.

October Country, directed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, won Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film. I’m embarassed to admit that I’d never heard of this doc until last night.

The winner of the Outstanding Achievement in Direction award went to Agnes Varda for The Beaches of Agnes. Varda didn’t show but this didn’t feel like a big issue. Varda’s substitute was very gracious. The vibe was “we be fine, everything is fine.” And there was a noisy disco-inferno party afterwards.

A.J. Schnack, Esther Robinson

At last night’s Broadcast Film Critics Awards Avatar director James Cameron spoke with MTV.com’s Josh Horowitz about the Avatar sequel, the DVD sex scene, the extended cut, the Avatar blues, etc. In another clip he predicts that Avatar‘s box-office defeat of Titanic is “gonna happen.”

Moments after Mo’Nique won the Best Supporting Actress award at last night’s Critics’ Choice Awards for her Precious performance, Gold Derby’s Tom O’Neil asked about her not showing up at the Toronto Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the New York Film Critics Awards to support the film. While giving O’Neil a look that would freeze the warts off a polar bear, Mo’Nique ducked the question (chickenshit) and let her husband-manager, Sidney Hicks, handle it instead.

Hicks gave O’Neil a “blah-blah-blah answer about her being a busy mom and talk-show host,” writes O’Neil.

A big-studio weekend estimate is forecasting that Avatar will beat The Book of Eli by nearly $10 million as of Sunday night, and thereby take the #1 slot for the fifth weekend in a row.

While Avatar‘s Friday total of $10,431,000 was slightly less than Eli‘s $11,728,000, the studio estimate claims that Avatar‘s 3-day total will be $41,750,000 (and a $52 million 4-day tally including Monday’s MLK hoilday) vs. a 3-day $32 million total for The Book of Eli (and $37 million with MLK).

The wide break of The Lovely Bones will come in third with $16,225,000 (MLK $19 millon) followed by Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (3-day $11,544,000) and The Spy Next Door (3-day $9,224,000, MLK $12,102,000).